Tenor drum

A tenor drum is a cylindrical drum, which is higher pitched than a bass drum.

In a symphony orchestra's percussion section, a tenor drum is a low-pitched variant of the snare drum, although sometimes without snares and played with soft mallets or hard sticks. Under various names, the drum has been used by composers since the mid-19th century. It is particularly noticeable in scores by 20th century English composers such as Benjamin Britten and William Walton, and American composers such as Aaron Copland.

Multi Tenor Drums

Tenor drums (commonly as mounted sets of 3-6 drums) are a marching percussion instrument, allowing one person to carry and play multiple drums simultaneously. Other names for the drums include the general "toms" and "timp toms", as well as the number-specific "duos" (2 drums), "tris", "trios" or "tri toms" (3 drums), "quads" or "quad toms" (4 drums), "quints" (5 drums), and "squints," "hexes," "six-packs," or "sextets" (6 drums). Interestingly, the number-specific term "quads" has come to be accepted as a generic term, used by many lines that utilize 4-6 drum sets. Typically there are four main drums (usually either 8, 10, 12, and 13 (which is referred to as a high school configuration) or 10, 12, 13, and 14 (referred to as a Corps configuration) inches in diameter) and one or two accent drums (typically 6 or 8 inches in diameter). The accent drums are also known as shot, gock, or spock drums. These drums are usually tightened as high as they can go to achieve maximum effect. Sometimes there are other percussion instruments added such as cowbells or cymbals.

The purpose of the tenors in the marching band is mainly to add even more color to the music. In big lines, there can be as many as 6 tenor players. Many high school marching bands will have one to three tenors, while it is typical for Division I drum corps to contain as many as four or five. They take on the role of accenting the snare part (as the tenors usually have shared parts of the snare drum, playing exactly what the snares play rudimentally, but with movement) and also function as melodic percussion due to the fact that there are multiple drums.

For four drums, they are typically arranged so that the lowest drum is to the player's far left, the second lowest is on the player's far right, the second highest is on the middle left, and the highest is on the middle right. This makes it easier to play common patterns, and is easier to balance than they would be if they were in order in a line. This arrangement is ideal for right-handed players and is almost always the arrangement in lines that consist of more than one tenor player for uniformity. If there is a fifth drum (often called the shot or spock drum) it is placed between the player and the highest two drums. If there are six drums, the fifth and sixth drum are centered closest to the player's body.

Most of the time, tenor drums are tuned relatively tightly, giving them a high-pitched sound that carries well outdoors and a bounce affect when hit. Within the set of drums, the main drums are tuned to relative intervals (more common intervals being the minor 3rd, perfect 4th, and perfect 5th), while the accent drums are generally tuned as high as possible without breaking the head (often humorously referred to as "higher" and "highest", in the case of a 6-drum set).

Tenors are played with mallets or drumsticks. A wide variety of implements are available, encompassing a full spectrum of shaft materials (hickory and aluminum are the most popular), head materials (wood, plastic/nylon, rubber, felt, and fleece "puffs" are all common), and head shape/size (ranging from large "cartwheel" discs (sometimes referred to as "cookie cutters") to traditional drum stick beads).

Most tenor players use matched grip. This facilitates tenor techniques such as "sweeps" or "scrapes" (playing double-bounce, or roll strokes in succession, while moving across different drums) and "crossovers" (crossing one hand over the other to reach a drum). These techniques allow an incredible variety of rhythmic and melodic figures possible on the tenors, as well as adding a distinct visual element to tenor playing.

The drums are played near the edge of the head, like timpani. This allows for the optimum resonance and fundamental tone of the drum to project. There are two "systems" to facilitate these playing areas. The more common one recently is playing within a line, or, allowing the sticks to move across the main four drums in a pattern that forms a straight line from drum-to-drum. This reduces the amount of space the player must travel to execute some of the more complex movement patterns. It also allows for less upper arm motion from side-to-side, which streamlines movement to play patterns, and also makes it easier to balance the weight of the drums as we march (or run as we are doing now-a-days) with the drums on.

The other system is the "arc" system where the player play in an arc to get to the outer two drums. This system was more in use in the early days when the carrier, or "rack" systems of the drums held the outside two drums more "around" the player. Most newer carrier systems allow for the outside two drums to be more in front of the player, or in a line with the smaller two drums, thus facillitating the "line" system.

Pipe Band Tenor Drum

Originally a rope-tensioned drum, giving way to modern rod tension, the tenor drum occupied a unique position in the drum corps of military and civilian pipe bands, being used as both timekeepers, accents to the musical ensemble, as well as spectacle.

Tenor drummers in pipe bands play the instruments with beaters on the end of long sticks, which are then tied to the fingers, and tenor drummers twirl the beaters while playing.

Three types of tenor drum are played in modern pipe bands :

#Flourishing Tenor - as described above, in which the tenor drum beaters are flourished in coordinated movements, while striking the drum; to add "spectacle". Modern pipe bands of average size usually field two to six flourishing tenor drummers.
#Alto Tenor - played in tandem with the bass drum to add sound and keep time. Not all bands use alto tenor drums.
#Rhythm Tenor-played to accent the snare drum part. It usually is played constantly.

In a usual band formation, the tenor drummers occupy the row(s) between the bass and side drummers.

This type of drum is often used in the Army Cadet Corps. and Air Training Corps. It is mainly used in the "flourishing tenor" style, in beat with the bass drum.

References

* James Blades et al, "Drum", sec. II, 3: Non-tunable Western drums: Tenor drum, in "New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", 2nd edition, Stanley Sadie, ed. Volume 7, page 614. Macmillan Publishers Limited (2001)
*“The Cadets Approach to Marching Percussion” (citation not known)
* Davila, Julie, "Modern Method for Multi-Tenors" Rowloff Publications